Choices for 3.79

September 13th, 2006
Entries, Noteworthy

The other day I was in the school bookstore looking around for a black marker that I could use to label the cds and dvds I burn. There’s this huge display case of them, literally a wall of pens.

I find this one marker I think will work well and I slip it into my pocket as I look for another one. I find another marker, and it suddenly hits me —

Both of them don’t have a barcode on them. I look around at all the other pens. They all have barcodes on them. All of them… except the two pens I picked. It dawns on me that I could just walk out and not have to pay for these things.

“It’s not a big deal,” I thought to myself. “They’re probably not even worth that much anyway. And it’s their fault for not putting barcodes on these things.”

I struggled and deliberated for 5 minutes by that case of pens. And before I did anything stupid, I hurried over to the register.

The thing was that although these pens were unlabeled, they have their prices in this big binder. And so the girl taking my purchases down found one pen, but couldn’t find the other. So, she had to go back upstairs to see how much it cost.

I thought to myself, “Great, Daniel, you’re doing the right thing. And you’re wasting your time. You could have gotten these things for free and gotten out 10 minutes ago. Good going.”

She finally came back and my purchase was finished, a whopping 3.79 for two measely markers.

But that’s the thing about life and God. We’re surrounded by CHOICES all day long. And even though I probably paid too much for those markers and lost a little time I could have used for procrastination, I know I did what was right — and that’s a feeling that’s much better than knowing I got a good deal.

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